New Zealand Environment Minister David Benson-Pope has proposed expanding the scope of New Zealand's curbside recycling program. Currently, only plastics #1-2 are recycled and the rest are landfilled. Anna Chalmers writes in Stuff New Zealand that the large amounts of plastics waste are hurting New Zealand's waste diversion goals:

"Every year in New Zealand we throw away 3.2 million tonnes of rubbish, more than half of which could be recycled or composted...Huge volumes of plastic that are disposed into recycling bins are later dumped at landfills because they do not meet recycling guidelines."